Resumen de Christ the Magic Dragon
Depictions of the caladrius in medieval bestiaries draw on accompanying texts that emphasize the bird's diagnostic power, and, integrated with pictorial traditions of the brazen serpent and Christ Trampling the Beasts, they (and others in related works) transform natural history into spiritual commentary. Engaging the choice of reading the image only as a representation of the physical world or as a bearer of significance based on faith, the pictures thus confront viewers with a decision quite like the one the Israelites themselves faced in the desert, namely, whether to believe or to dissent. Applied to the serpentine Christ on the cross, the illustrations serve to separate believers from heretics; as important, their very duality (like Christ's) was magical, realizing in the process of decoding their double significance the curative potential of physical images.
